Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska governor and senator known for his acerbic tongue and iconoclastic tendencies, earned an overwhelming vote of no-confidence on Wednesday afternoon from the senior faculty at the New School, the Greenwich Village university he has run since 2001.

Mr. Kerrey has clashed with some faculty leaders since the day of his appointment as the New School’s president, with complaints that he lacked academic credentials and that his politics — particularly his early support for the Iraq war — were too moderate for the unabashedly liberal campus. But the underlying controversies became an open uprising in recent days as Mr. Kerrey announced that he would serve temporarily as provost as well president after cycling through five provosts in seven years.

After a lengthy closed-door discussion, 74 senior, tenured faculty members voted for the no-confidence resolution, 2 voted no and one abstained, according to Jim Miller, a professor of politics who is co-chairman of the Faculty Senate. While the vote has no practical impact, its organizers said their goal is to pressure the New School’s board of trustees — which was meeting separately at 4 p.m. — to dismiss Mr. Kerrey for what they contend is a failure to safeguard and defend the academic values of the institution.